The Empty World

Null's eyes opened to the faint, musty air of his underground apartment. His breath felt heavy as he slowly adjusted to the dimness around him. It was the same cramped room he had spent years in—a single, dilapidated space buried beneath the city. Cracked walls, chipped concrete, a rusted metal bedframe that groaned every time he shifted. Yet, something was terribly wrong.

No sound.

The familiar noise of leaky pipes, the hum of machines, the distant chatter of neighbors in the hallway—everything was gone. It was as though the world had been swallowed by silence. He squinted, trying to make sense of it all. His old lamp, placed on a rickety wooden table beside the bed, no longer flickered with light, no matter how many times he tried the switch. No power. No connection to anything.

A wave of unease settled over him. The last thing he remembered was the Ascendrix—a device that Selene had told him about. He remembered using it, activating something. Then… he was here. But this wasn't the same Earth he had known.

Null rose from his bed, his footsteps echoing far louder than they should have in the empty room. The floor was colder than usual beneath his bare feet, as though it hadn't been touched by warmth for ages. His hand traced along the damp, crumbling wall as he made his way toward the small, grimy window. Pulling aside the torn curtain, he was met with nothing—just pitch blackness. No streetlights, no distant cityscape, no moon. Only an endless, consuming darkness.

He felt a growing sense of dread. Was this the mission Selene had spoken of? Had Ascendrix brought him here? Null couldn't shake the feeling that this world, this empty void, was different. He thought back to what Selene had said about missions and trials. But there was no clear objective here, no clues as to what he was meant to do.

He pushed open the door to his apartment and stepped into the hallway. The place that had once been filled with the comings and goings of other tenants was now a desolate, soundless corridor. The faint smell of mold lingered, but even that was swallowed by the stillness. No flickering lights. No movement. As Null walked down the narrow passage, the emptiness of the building gnawed at him. Every door he passed was shut, every room devoid of life.

He reached the lobby, only to be met with the same haunting emptiness. No one was here. Not a single living soul. The large glass doors at the front of the building stood ajar, inviting him into the street outside.

Stepping out, Null braced himself for the familiar sight of the city above. But what greeted him was not the city he knew. The streets were empty, bathed in an unnatural darkness. No lights shone from the skyscrapers, no cars filled the roads, no distant murmur of life carried through the air. It was as if the world had vanished, leaving only an eerie shell of its former self.

Null wandered the streets, searching for something—anything—to explain what was happening. But there was nothing. The same endless dark. No wind, no stars in the sky, no signs of life anywhere. It was as if he had been abandoned in a world that had forgotten how to exist.

He moved through the empty roads, his mind racing. Was this his reality now? Selene had spoken of a mission, but what was he supposed to do here? A sense of helplessness began to wash over him, but he pushed it down, focusing on his steps. There had to be something.

Hours passed, or maybe days—it was hard to tell in this timeless, unchanging place. The world was still the same, an endless void of absence. Slowly, Null began to realize something profound: he was the only one here.

For the first time in his life, he was truly alone. And it didn't feel wrong.

Null had always been an outsider, drifting through life unnoticed and unloved. The emptiness of this world seemed to reflect that same hollow feeling. As if this reality had been shaped by his loneliness, by his isolation.

It was strange, but somehow, the silence comforted him. Here, he wasn't despised. Here, he wasn't an outcast. He was simply… there. A part of the emptiness. And as the days stretched on in this monotonous world, Null realized that this solitude might have been what he had been seeking all along.

Yet, he couldn't forget Selene's words. He still wanted to find a way out of this world.

For now, though, there was no answer. Only the hollow echo of his footsteps in the dark as he wandered through the empty streets, the only soul left in this strange, forsaken version of Earth.

He was alone. Finally, utterly alone. And for the first time, Null accepted that he might never leave this place.